tomatoes

[fruitcake]

hi everyone i started my tomatoes in airing cupboard and someone sain theyve bolted long stems and justr a set of leaves on top are they anygood or should i bin them thanks

[womble]

They've not bolted, just got long on lack of light.

Pot them on and bury the stem right down to the pair of leaves which are the seed leaves. They should be fine.

[fruitcake]

thanks will do it 2 day

[Flummery]

The airing cupboard is too dark. As soon as seeds germinate they want as much light as you can let them have. I'm sure you can rescue yours. Do the deep planting thing and if possible, let them have time outside in a gentle breeze. That toughens them up a bit! Good luck!

[Potstubsdustbins]

If my toms get leggy which they usually do when I pot on they go in as deep as possible even if it means taking off a side shoot or two.

The buried stem will produce extra roots and give you a good strong plant.

Colin

[Two_Sheds]

As the others have said, your plants haven't bolted (gone to flower) they've gone leggy (lack of light)

[Florence Fennel]

A few of mine are leggy (the ones in the corners of the windowsills), but I'll still pot them on as deep as I can. They'll be fine.

[bearded bloke]

Mine are fine but need potting up,so should I go up to the pair of pointy leaves (technical term ) or up to the first proper leaves Cheers

[chris]

Planting them deeper will give them a bit more stability, as like has been said above they root from the stem.

That said, I think it was FF above saying you can always see a well grown tomato as it still has it's seed leaves visible.

Mine were leggy, they went into 5" pots from 3" ones that they were sown in. They're now in Morrisons flower buckets, I potted them a bit deeper, but not as much as I did the first time around.

So really, BB it's up to you if they're ok!

[womble]

Mine are fine but need potting up,so should I go up to the pair of pointy leaves (technical term ) or up to the first proper leaves Cheers

You can do either, but if you do them unto the first true leaves, you can still get sideshoots coming from the axil of the seed leaves.
Which is not a massive problem, but you need to get under the soil a little to take them off.

What I'm doing this year is to plant to the seed leaves and when a couple of sideshoots have been removed from them, there won't be any more, so then I am going to earth up to the first true leaves. After removing the seed leaves if they remain.

If the seed leaves are yellow or missing, it does mean the plant has gone through some sort of stress.

[bearded bloke]

Thanks very much for the replies it's my first time at growing from seed & had really high percentage of germination,did not want to mess up at this stage,so I will take your advice on board & get potting up after dinner

[Potstubsdustbins]

Not exactly in the ground but same principle the pic will give you and idea of what toms do.


Colin